together, suggests that /dev/hda2 is not your root partition, as it does not have a directory /boot on it to mount your boot partition. mount /dev/hda2 now and look round using the ls command.

Grubs Error 18 states

Code:

18 : Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS
This error is returned when a read is attempted at a linear block
address beyond the end of the BIOS translated area. This generally
happens if your disk is larger than the BIOS can handle (512MB for
(E)IDE disks on older machines or larger than 8GB in general).

Either you are installing on a box with a BIOS that does not understand Logical Block Addressing or grub is confused. I suspect the latter

Mount your partitions one at a time and look at the contents to work out which is which.
Mount the root partition and check that your /etc/fstab matches. Get into the chroot, fix grub.conf then reinstall grub._________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Taking your
Code:
# mount /dev/hda2 /mnt/gentoo
# mount /dev/hda5 /mnt/gentoo/boot
mount: mount point /mnt/gentoo/boot does not exist
together, suggests that /dev/hda2 is not your root partition, as it does not have a directory /boot on it to mount your boot partition. mount /dev/hda2 now and look round using the ls command.

Your right, I forgot that before I reinstalled it I changed the partitions. hda1 is "/"... However, hda4 is still "/boot".

NeddySeagoon wrote:

Grubs Error 18 states
Code:
18 : Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS
This error is returned when a read is attempted at a linear block
address beyond the end of the BIOS translated area. This generally
happens if your disk is larger than the BIOS can handle (512MB for
(E)IDE disks on older machines or larger than 8GB in general).
Either you are installing on a box with a BIOS that does not understand Logical Block Addressing or grub is confused. I suspect the latter

Lets get this cflag thingy fixed first...

NeddySeagoon wrote:

Bob Leny,

Some BIOSes check the boot flag, some don't. Setting it may be essential for you. fdisk can do that and nothing is damaged.

Press a to toggle a bootable flag. fdisk will ask which partition.
You probably want to turn off DOS compatibility mode. That may be the case of your Error 18.
I'm not sure what it does but I've never used it.

Using p to view the partition table will show what flags are set where. When you are happy,
press w to write the changes to disk.

Note. the kernel does not alway spick up on updated partition tab;e info without a reboot.
Its always a good idea to reboot agyer you have made changes using fdisk.

You may find me in #gentoo-uk on irc.freenode.net. Ping me if you want some real time help.
I'll be in #gentoo too but thats a very busy channel. If you are new to irc, its not a good place to start._________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

My raid-0 is between /dev/sda3 and /dev/sdb1, they are installed to /dev/md1 in a raid array, and gentoo is installed there, along with the kernel. /dev/sda4 has grub installed, and the kernel, and the config is all setup, etc.

I have a small ThinClient with 250 MB Flashdisk and USB-Disk-Drive with 16 GB.
Before installing Gentoo there is Damn small Linux (Dsl) on the Flash-Diskdrive.
From DSL command line i used a Stage3-Install to install - everything works fine but... now i cant install Grub in the MBR?!

I have no cdrom an no floppy, and install Gentoo just on USB-HDD-Drive.
DSL will be stay on the /dev/hda.

Maybe i can do it like this:
The ThinClient can boot from this USB-Drive. I can connect the hdd (in the usbdrive as a slave-hdd, hdb) to another PC and install grub into the MBR of this drive but i dont know how to use the "right" device.map to install it. Because then grub use the device map of the PC, didn' t it?

Is there a way to "cheat" this device.map and make grub to believe that the hdd which is on /dev/hdb at the another pc. Is the first sda or uba?

Or like that:
If i try from the gentoo chroot i get this

Code:

# grub-install /dev/uba
/dev/uba: Not found or not a block device.

I can try to install grub into the MBR of the Flashdisk (/dev/hda) but i think grub cant access the Usb-Drive before boot?

Iam anxiety to distroy the "ds-linux" on the flashdisk... with a wrong grubconfig. So i will try this at last! And i cant modify the ds-linux-grub-config because its a bequest of the "LIVE-CD"-installation that this config is in a "KNOPPIX" part - without writeaccess.

You can only use Grub if the BIOS can map the drive. If the BIOS has no idea the drive exists, it can't give grub the drive info.

It appears you are trying to use the slow USB block driver. USB devices are better mapped as SCSI, so if the USB drive is your first 'SCSI' device, it will be /dev/sda

Its quite safe to modify your existing grub.conf by adding a new boot block below the one(s) your already have. A boot block is the lines

Code:

title=...
root (hd...
kernel .....
initrd ... (thats optional)

I you want to do that, you need to remount the partition rw, with

Code:

mount -o rw,remount /dev...

You can also poke about in the grub shell, to see what grub can detect.
Do the manual grub install process - almost. -> means press the tab key

Code:

grub -no-floppy
root (hd->

grub shows all the drives it knows, or addin in 0, if there is only one.
Contine by adding to the root line

Code:

root (hd0,->

grub shows all the partitions on (hd0).
Use backspace to check any other drives too. You can tell them apart.
You may quit at any time is contine with the

Code:

setup (hd...

command to actually do the install.

Grub does not see the USB drive, the BIOS does. If the BIOS cannot boot from USB, its game over (almost) You have to use grub on the USB device as a secondary boot loader and use another boot loader that can read USB to get started. That probably means installing your Gentoo kernel on your flash drive and using DSLs grub to load it, as outlined above._________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

thanx this seems to have done the trick. just to be sure. this was to be written to /boot/grub/menu.1st_________________As long as i have my books, my mind and google; I am as knowledgeable as any linux guru

It appears you are trying to use the slow USB block driver. USB devices are better mapped as SCSI, so if the USB drive is your first 'SCSI' device, it will be /dev/sda

I think that the ThinClient have just the slow usb-1.0. Is in my instance a large performance drifference between my Hardware and the slow USB-Block-Driver? How can i mapped the device as a faster SCSI-Device? - But i think the gentoo-kernel do it at boot-time!?

Quote:

You can also poke about in the grub shell, to see what grub can detect.

Grub in chroot-mode cant detect any drive than the Flashdisk.

Quote:

Grub does not see the USB drive, the BIOS does. If the BIOS cannot boot from USB, its game over (almost)

I know that the bios can Boot from USB. I installed DSL with an Live-Cd-Image from my USB-Stick :)

Quote:

You have to use grub on the USB device as a secondary boot loader and use another boot loader that can read USB to get started. That probably means installing your Gentoo kernel on your flash drive and using DSLs grub to load it, as outlined above.

Yes now i think this will be the best. "BUT" theres a problem. Maybe a small one.
Grub didnt start at bootup. Now i thnk that the "grub" in the KNOPPIX-Dir is not used.

But it "looks like". The Boot-Partition of DSL is Link on the KNOPPIX Directory which is used as a CLOOP-Device. I cant install grub from there..?

I am confident that the usb-drive can boot if i install grub in his MBR and set the root Partition on (hd0,3).

Maybe i try to install the drive as first drive in another pc, start gentoo-live-cd and start grub-install?

I test to install grub with a live-cd from another pc. And it "works". And now if i bootup the Client from "USB" he load grub. And i can use the Commandline in there etc.. to made a setup. In there, grub can see the drive right.

But i think the main-problem is to start the Kernel. If he lunch, he cant see the USB-drive!
-Every time i got kernel panic.-

But that mean that grub "works", it resolve the device right and know the FileSystemtyp.

Damn! - OK. I think the only sollution is to boot the client with a "live-cd-usb-disk". Formating the Flashdisk and move my "boot" over.. to this. Then i think the grub-install works right there...

To make a kernel boot from USB, you need a special kernel parameter.
In grub.conf, on the kernel line add

Code:

rootdelay=<seconds>

where <seconds> is a number between 7 and 30.

Normally, the kernel mounts root before its USB subsystem is initalised. Thats a problem is root is to be on USB.
This delay makes the kernel delay mounting root. You need to choose a time that allows the USB subsystem to start._________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

I'm back... As a result of my last round of difficulties, (see error collection part 6) I ended up blowing away the entire installation and redoing it from scratch (this time using 2006.1) on a reformatted disk.

I AM STILL HAVING THE SAME PROBLEM!!!

I can boot fine off a grub floppy, indeed I don't even need to tell it where the root partition is, just

and away it goes, finding my boot directory and otherwise acting just as it should...

But if I try to boot off the hard drive, I keep getting "Hard Disk Error" which per the GNU GRUB manual means: "The stage2 or stage1.5 is being read from a hard disk, and the attempt to determine the size and geometry of the hard disk failed."

Per Neddy's suggestion to a few others, I have set my BIOS to use LBA addressing on the hard drive, which it ID's correctly.

I have tried installing grub manually, and with grub-install, both from the livecd and from the hard drive. In every case, the install goes as expected, with no error messages or other signs of problems.

Grub version is 0.97-r2, which is the latest version available according to portage.

Dev//hda12 is just a blank right now, I don't have it assigned or formatted to anything, I just added it to fill up the rest of the disk in case that was a part of my problem. I have also tried playing with the "boot" flag, putting it on the /DOS partition, the /boot partition, and not having a bootable flag at all. Nothing has made any difference.

Per Nightwing's suggestion earlier, I did check the Gigabyte website, and they do have several updates on the BIOS, mine is currently at F2
and the latest is F8. However, none of the listed changes below seem to address this issue. I haven't actually done the upgrade yet, because Gigabyte says "copy the upgrade file to floppy" without saying what floppy format to use. (I have a question into their tech support on this)

BIOS raid is a problem. Your only reason for using it is that you want to share the raid set with windows. If thats a requirement see thedmraid sticky

For linux only, ignore your BIOS raid and use kernel raid. You must not make /boot raid0, since grub does not understand raid at all but is quire happy to boot off one part of a raid1 set.
Be aware that kernel raid puts partitions, not drives into raid sets, so you can mix raid1 and raid0 on the same drives.
The process is partition, form the raid devices (/dev/mdX) format the raid devices and forget about the underlying drives. The kernel looks after that from now on._________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

I have repeatedly installed Grub, using both the manual and grub-install methods, no change.

I have also (when using grub-install) experimented with most of the options listed in the grub-install help screen, particularly "--no-floppy" (even though I have a floppy), --recheck and --force-lba. None of these have made a difference either singularly or in combination. The system still gives me "Grub Hard Disk Error" when I attempt to boot from the hard drive, but boots fine if I stick in a Grub floppy, and use that to boot manually.

I also per some suggestions I've seen tried re-emerging it with empty CFLAGS (CFLAGS=" " emerge grub), again no change.

Further, since my last post, I did a minimal DOS install to /dev/hda3 as I was planning to. Grub will also boot DOS from the floppy disk if I give it the right commands.

While there still might be a problem with my BIOS revision, I'm also fairly comfortable saying I don't think there are any other hardware related issues. Among other things both the boxes in my sig use the same model hard-drive, and the Celeron box boots off the hard drive (via grub) just fine.

Much as I hate to do it, I think I'm about ready to give up and just leave a floppy in the drive all the time and boot off of that. However it's a pain to keep having to enter in the grub console command sequence. so I'm hoping that I can get a boot floppy with a grub.conf / menu.lst menu file on it. (I can live without a splash image if need be) I think I've found a guide on how to do that, so it shouldn't be to big of a problem.

I had a perfectly working gentoo setup working with latest grub. After a regular kernel upgrade (semi-automatic as in make && make modules_install && make install), the system wont come up. I.e., the first thing that pops un in the bootup process is just 'GRUB' message and then system locks up.

I tried chroot'ing back in, and re-setting the mbr with grub's root & setup, - just in case the mbr got corrupted or something of that sort, - it did not help...
I checked the boot partition, no corruptions, all files are in place. The only thing that might have led to this situation was the kernel upgrade.

Just as a note, I was able to generate a full function grub floppy following (mostly) the directions from here.

A couple of minor mods,

1. Every time I tried to use /dev/fd0u1440 I got complaints about no such device, so I just used plain /dev/fd0 instead, which worked. I assume the long device name was to specify the 1.44mb format, but in my case at least it did 1.44mb by default.

2. I copied the grub.conf I had made on the hard drive to the floppy, changing the name to menu.lst at the same time.

3. I also copied the splash image file as well, and so now I still get the splash screen, just loading off the floppy instead.

4. It is worth noting that the grub.conf / menu.lst file DOES NOT CHANGE when you move it over to the floppy, It still points to the same places on the hard drive, and really doesn't seem to care where it is run from.

I still think it's an ugly, miserable solution, but at least it works. I get a boot menu that lets me start either Gentoo or :Puke: DOS.